Located near Carlsbad, New Mexico this Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear waste dump is experimental. Attempting to store leftover radioactive plutonium and americium from the U.S. weapons program. On February 14, 2014 there was a nuclear safety failure at the site and the Department of Energy is not being honest about it. In this movie Fair Winds Energy Education's Arnie Gundersen pieces together what happened and points out Fair Winds' major Concerns about the facility, the accident, and the lack of transparency at the DOE.

Listen

English

Hi, I am Arnie Gundersen from Fairewinds.

We have a slightly different format today because I am out of the office preparing testimony as an expert witness in a nuclear safety case.

In addition to the continuing releases from the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear meltdowns, our focus today is on a US nuclear waste project in New Mexico that has contaminated workers and is leaking radioactivity into the surrounding environment.

Located near Carlsbad, New Mexico this Department of Energy (DOE) experimental nuclear waste dump is attempting to store leftover radioactive plutonium and americium from the US weapons program. Those of you who follow nuclear waste storage issues know that americium is radioactive for several hundred years while plutonium is radioactive for 250,000-years.

Fairewinds Energy Education has received many questions about this serious nuclear safety failure. We have continuously been updating this issue on Fairewinds’ Twitter Feed, Fairewinds’ Facebook Page, and in press interviews. Common Dreams has also posted four separate and complete interviews with me on this calamity, and we have placed those links at the end of this video, on this page following the transcript, and on our Facebook page and Twitter Feed.

So what is this Waste Isolation Pilot Project called WIPP? Nuclear power and nuclear weapons both leave toxic remnants, in other words toxic trash, that must be isolated for hundreds of thousands of years, actually one-quarter of a million years, because this waste is such highly toxic radioactive debris that it must be locked away so as not to migrate into the air we breath… the water we drink… or the food we eat.

The nuclear weapons industry, which owns WIPP, and the nuclear power industry claim that this toxic nuclear debris is not a problem and is safe to store in underground salt mines, which they hope are impervious to water and therefore will not allow this toxic nuclear debris to migrate. On the other hand, many state legislatures, city councils, intervenor groups, landowners and farms near such sites, and environmental groups worry that no site in the world can actually accommodate and store such toxic nuclear debris.

The Carlsbad New Mexico Waste storage Pilot Project is located in a salt mine that is a half a mile underground. The US DOE calls this a pilot project because it has been receiving high level nuclear weapons waste for more than 10-years as part of an experimental waste system.

This mine, just like any other mine, continuously removes the stale air and draws in fresh air through a large system of huge fans that sit on the surface at the top of the mine and pull that stale air out thus allowing fresh air to come in.

On the evening of Valentine’s Day, something dangerous happened deep underground. The DOE calls it an event, which in my book is a euphemism [in other words a slick word] for a nuclear safety failure, leak, or spill. Fairewinds has been quoted about this WIPP calamity in Common Dreams since February 17.

What do we know? Well, we certainly don’t know enough because the DOE has not been honest with us, and in typical US government fashion, we are only getting small bits of the actual nuclear safety failure at WIPP. This is what DOE has told us so far:

On the night of February 14, radiation detectors in the ventilation system at WIPP detected radiation in the exhaust air being released from the salt mine. That exhaust air contained both Plutonium and Americium, two types of radiation that are extremely dangerous if inhaled even in miniscule quantities. At first, DOE claimed that no one was in the mine when the radiation was released, and that their night shift personnel were in a separate building, and therefore were not exposed to any radiation. DOE also claims that radiation filters were turned on within one minute of the radiation release, so that those filters immediately began filtering the ventilation air being expelled from the nuclear waste storage salt mine. Now we have learned that the land above ground at this nuclear dumpsite has been contaminated in at least a one-half mile circle and that radiation has also been detected off site as far away as the surrounding communities. Last Thursday, February 27, almost two weeks after these radioactive leaks and nuclear safety failure, the DOE finally announced that 13 workers, who were on site at the time of the Valentine’s Day roof collapse had tested positive for internal radiation exposure. This internal dose of radiation was detected in their urine. More than two weeks after this toxic leak, the DOE has finally announced that all WIPP workers who came on site on February 15 will also be tested to see if they had been contaminated. [More than 650 employees work at the site on the day shift]. Lastly, DOE also claims that no personnel have been allowed to reenter the mine since this severe radioactive leak was discovered. But what really happened at WIPP?

Whistleblowers and family members of mine workers claim that a ceiling in one portion of the mine collapsed. And, that when that ceiling collapsed, it fell directly on top of canisters storing the highly toxic nuclear debris thereby causing the canisters to rupture and spew radioactivity throughout the mine and in a radioactive plume that has moved offsite.

Based on the minimal data thus far released by DOE and couched in nuke speak, it is Fairewinds’ opinion that:

DOE has not released enough information to the public and independent scientists needed to assess public health threats and environmental contamination resulting from the radioactive debris erroneously discharged from the mine. Based on the fact that workers and land far outside the mine are contaminated, the underground portions of the mine are likely severely contaminated. There are thousands of sealed canisters in the underground mine. At a minimum, one of the seals on one of the canisters has failed allowing radiation to be released. If the roof has collapsed, as claimed by some people familiar with the site, it is also possible that many canisters have failed in some other manner and leaked toxic nuclear debris that was intended to be secure for at least one-quarter of a million years. Such a major leak would leave extensive underground contamination and make that portion of the mine inaccessible due to the high levels of radiation. Filters are not perfect and radiation is continuing to be released even though the filters remain are operational. The DOE claims that its filters are 99.9% effective. I don’t believe that to be true, but let’s take them at their word for the sake of mathematical comparison.

99.9% means that 999 minutes out of every 1,000 minutes those filters capture every bit of radiation, but for one minute out of every 1,000 the filters capture nothing. OK, lets do the math. A single day contains more than 1400 minutes, and WIPP has now been venting radiation for almost 3 weeks. One minute out of every 1,000 minutes multiplied by three weeks means that the mine has essentially been unfiltered for 30 minutes once the nuclear safety failure began. While the surrounding communities were initially exposed to a one-minute burst of radiation at the beginning of this system malfunction and radioactive release, and now at least 30 minutes more radioactive air has escaped from the mine unfiltered.

As the National Academy of Science determined in its BEIR 7 Report on Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation, all manmade radiation causes damage, and there is no level that is simply OK. We have four additional major concerns:

First, how serious is this tragedy and how widespread is the radiation? A WIPP press release has offered to test anyone within a 100-mile circle around the site for exposure to this manmade radiation. Can they mitigate the health effects too? Second, and of great public health consequence, unless the workers were completely decontaminated and their clothes and shoes, and personal belongings in their possession destroyed, when they got contaminated, some of that radioactivity went home with them and may have contaminated their families. Their families, their automobiles, their homes, their clothes should all be tested and may need to have the radioactivity cleaned up. Did these employees stop by a grocery store on the way home or meet a friend for coffee? Where they wearing the same clothes home that they wore to work. These are not made up concepts. The spread of radioactivity from nuclear workers and hospital workers or patients exposed to radioactivity who then bring that contamination home, is a well-documented fact around the world. Third, what would have happened if the roof collapsed during the daytime when men were inside the mine? There would have been many physical casualties severely complicated by high levels of radiation. The DOE is simply lucky that thus far, no one has died. Nearby communities and environmental leaders have been concerned for years about water from the fracking in the vicinity entering the salt and migrating to the mine. Is the nearby fracking the cause of the roof collapse? We all have a lot of questions to keep asking federal authorities.

This document is under GFDL, see www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html. Reproduction and distribution - even in modified form - are permitted at any time, changes must be notified (email: afaz@gmx.at). www.afaz.at March 2014 / v1